Just a Place To Stay
by Zeitlose Alters
Summary: Bucky shows up at the doorstep one night. NO SLASH, post CATWS, Stucky fluff.
1. At the Door

It was two-maybe three-in the morning on a cold January night. Steve had been staying with Sam while his apartment was undergoing maintenance. The house was pin-drop silent (save for faint snoring), then there was a knock at the front door. When no one answered a few moments later, there was a louder thumping. Steve opened his eyes and sat up in bed, fumbled for some pants and a shirt, and walked into the hall to the front door. Whoever it was thumped again. Steve opened the door and rubbed the heel of his palms into his eyes to wake himself up.

"Look, if this is about that missing cat, please tell the owner..." he shoved his hands into his pockets, but when he saw who was in front of him, Steve froze, "...Bucky?"

Standing before him was a disheveled and a very exhausted Bucky. He wore a pair of faded, torn, well-used jeans over (what Steve assumed to be) his military boots and the black T-shirt he wore had a faded Fleetwood Mac logo in the center. Bucky hugged his arms around himself and blew a lock of hair out of his face with a small white cloud of breath, showing off the large, dark circles under his eyes.

"I know you."

"Yeah...you do. And it's been a while. Come on, get in here," Steve coaxed as he pulled Bucky into the house.

He guided his not-so-long-lost friend over to the sofa, where he sat him down and put a blanket over Bucky's shoulders. The ex-assassin pulled the blue fleece closer around himself and stared down at the floor in his own way of saying "thank you". Steve walked into the kitchen, flicked the light on, and worked on a pot of coffee.

"For a 'Winter Soldier'...you don't seem to like cold weather," he joked casually, "which I find odd because you loved the snow in Brooklyn."

"Cryofreeze."

"What?"

"Hydra'd give me a mission, I'd do it, I'd get to sleep for a few more years. Get to escape," Bucky said flatly and kept staring at the floor.

Steve only nodded. In truth, he felt awful that Bucky, **_his Bucky_**, had been turned into this brainwashed zombie. It sickened him; it made him glad that Hydra had been defeated. He still remembered what happened over the Potomac, even if Bucky didn't. How he didn't fight back, how he couldn't fight back. How he didn't want to hurt his best friend even if he died. How he promised to stay with him 'till the end of the line. The coffee machine beeped and Steve heard a door open. There were some footsteps and soon Sam came into the kitchen.

"Why are you making coffee at 3:45 - why is he in my house?"

Bucky jumped to his feet, dropped the blanket, and assumed a defensive position. Sam followed suit off of old instinct, and both were about three seconds away from beating the other's ass into pulp. Steve jumped in between the two and put a hand up to each.

"Everyone calm down. Bucky showed up at the door, so I invited him in."

Sam relaxed and leaned against the wall, "he's not a lost puppy, Cap."

"He's not a bloodthirsty murderer either," Steve moved over to Bucky, eased him out of his stance, and back down on the sofa, "want some coffee?"

Sam nodded and pulled three mugs from a cupboard while the Captain tried to make Bucky comfortable again. He helped him get his boots off, gave him an old hoodie from the bedroom, and brought him some coffee.

"Thanks," Bucky mumbled, almost silently, and took the mug.

There was a quiet _clink_ when he took it in his metal hand. Sam took a seat in the recliner to the right of the sofa, and Steve sat down next to Bucky. The ex-assassin tensed for a second before he relaxed and sank back into the pillows.

"If you don't mind my asking," Sam began, " how'd you find my house? And how'd you know Steve was going to be here?"

"I was sitting on a bench in a park...a woman came up and started talking to me. She said she knew who I was. Said her name was Natasha," Bucky took a drink from the mug and continued staring at the floor, "she handed me a piece of paper with an address on it and told me to go there. She said that you would be waiting here for me."

"I guess that's true. You can take the bedroom," Steve offered.

Bucky looked up from the floor and over to the blonde captain.

"I'll take the couch and you can have my bed. You need it."

Sam took all of their mugs into the kitchen and went back to his bedroom. Steve put Bucky's non-metal arm over his shoulders, put an arm around Bucky's waist, and stood the both of them up. Steve's heart dropped when he felt how small his friend's waist had gotten.

"Buck, when was the last time you ate?"

"Three...no two...three days ago. I think."

The brunette lolled against the captain as they walked, proving that he was as exhausted as he looked. When they reached the bedroom, Steve led his friend down onto the bed, and sat him down. He handed the ex-assassin a pair of sweat pants from a drawer.

Bucky welcomed the new clothes and quickly changed out. He pulled the jeans, hoodie, and old shirt off to reveal the scars that flecked his chest, arms, and legs. The scars from stitching the metal arm on, and the scratched red star that was embossed on the silver metal. Steve saw him out if the corner of his eye as he turned for the door.

"Thank you," Bucky said flatly as he slid into the bed.

Steve twitched the corner of his lips in a small smile, "get some sleep, Buck."


	2. A Nightmare and a Name

_The sky was black, the ground was black, everything was black. Except for the bodies. Those littered whatever type of ground he walked on in piles. So much so that Bucky found himself struggling to avoid stepping on them. It's not like the bodies meant anything to him and even if they did, he wouldn't know. To be honest, Bucky didn't even know where he was going. He was just walking. He had his full military attire on, he felt all his knives and guns resting in their prosper sheaths and holds._

_Something tapped his shoulder and he turned around. He had to look down to see her: a little girl - maybe five or six - with pallid grey skin, and a gaping bullet hole in the middle of her eyes that leaked ink-black blood. Her polka-dot, pink dress was splattered with similar blood. as was her matted, auburn hair. Her eyes were solid black and she wore a joker-esque smile._

_"Do you remember me, Bucky?" her voice was overly sweet, but echoed demonically._

_He shook his head with a blank, terrified expression._

_"You should," her voice deepened and behind her, a mob of pallid-skinned, ink-blooded zombies shuffled towards him, "you assassinated me. August ninth, 1953. I was the daughter of a Russian spy."_

_The mob advanced and the girl continued to name off dates, names, and reasons. Then a face appeared behind her._

_Steve._

_His hands were raised in front of him and groped for Bucky. His jaw chewed up and down aimlessly and ink-blood dripped from in between zombie Steve's teeth. Sickening moans filled the air and the zombies encircled around Bucky; their black eyes seeming to focus on him. He screamed "NO" at the top of his lungs, but there was no sound. Grey hands closed around him and he felt mouths chomping down on his flesh, teeth tearing into him, and there was a flash of white._

He was screaming.

* * *

He heard a screaming, loud and panicked, and knew exactly who it was. Immediately, Steve was up off the couch and making a mad dash for Bucky's room. When he burst in, Bucky was screaming and clawing at the sheets like his life depended on it. Steve ran over and sat down on the edge of the bed. He pried Bucky's hands from the sheets and pulled him into a sitting position.

Steve put his hands on Bucky's shoulders and gently shook him awake, "Bucky, Bucky! Wake up. It's just a nightmare...you're fine. It's just a nightmare. You're fine. Bucky..."

Bucky's eyes bolted open and he stared blankly at Steve while trying desperately to avoid hyperventilating. His breaths slowed down and he locked his eyes on Steve.

"Steve...?" he asked shakily.

Steve nodded in return, and he wanted to smile, but could bring himself to. Bucky hugged himself around his captain and started sobbing into Steve's chest. The blonde wrapped his arms around the crying friend. Sam ran up to the doorway and was about to turn on the light, but when he saw the two, he stopped and slowly backed out.

"Shh...it's okay, Bucky. I'm here," Steve whispered soothingly and rocked back and forth slowly, "I'm right here. It's okay."

"So many bodies...I killed so many people!" he choked out in between sobs, "right between the eyes...what was I doing?!"

"It wasn't your fault, Buck. Nothing's your fault. I'm just curious, and you don't have to answer...but do you remember anything else?"

"Just...just the name...that's all."

Steve gently stroked Bucky's long hair and continued to rock him and calm him down. Bucky's grip around the captain tightened and he felt the metal arm squeezing into his back, but Steve didn't care. He absentmindedly trace over the stitching scars at the base of Bucky's metal arm. The cold metal felt strangely natural to him. Before long, Bucky had stopped crying and had fallen asleep around Steve. So, the captain reached a hand under the blankets and under Bucky's knees. He picked him up, carried him into the living room bridal style, and set him down in the couch.

He pulled the blanket around Bucky and sat down next to him. Once they were both sitting, the brunette's head dropped onto Steve's shoulder and he couldn't help but smile. The two fell asleep like that.


	3. The Confidential File

**hello everyone! I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone who's followed/favorited and to everyone who's left super nice reviews! Anyways...I edited chapter 1-2 ****by just like 5%. Its nothing major so not reading it isn't gonna affect the rest of the story. AND I KNOW THIS CHAPTER IS LATE BUT MY WIFI CRASHED! Translations are at the bottom. Enough waffles...**

* * *

"So...what happened last night?" Sam asked.

Steve shot him a look that said "why did you have to ask that". Bucky drew in a sharp breath and held his metal hand over his left eye. His breaths grew more and more ragged as the nightmare replayed in his head. The memories of fighting in the Helicarrier flooded back to him.

_"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."_

_"Shut up!"_

_"Your my friend...I'm not gonna fight you."_

_"You're my mission!"_

_"Then do it. 'Cause I'm with you till the end of the line."_

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to Steve standing over him. Sam set some plates piled high with food down on the table and sat down across from Bucky.

"You gonna be okay?"

"Uhh...y-yeah."

They ate in silence for about ten minutes before Steve's cellphone rang. Sam couldn't help but laugh at him when he had to ask how to answer it again. But eventually he did answer it and stepped back into the hall.

"Steve's done nothing but talk about you the past months," Sam spoke over a mouthful of pancake.

"He has?"

"Stories about how'd he always get into fights in the back alleys of Brooklyn. Then you'd come in and finish the other guy off for him. I think my favorite has to be this one where you and him were in a bar just hanging out with a couple of drinks and some big, tough guy starts joking on Steve for being scrawny. So you take the guy outside and you both get your asses beat. He leaves and you walk back in nose bleeding, black eye, split lip...the whole nine yards. Anyways, there's this girl a few seats down that apparently you'd been eyeing all night. Long story short you buy her a drink, and she turns you down stone cold."

Bucky couldn't help but smile a little bit at that. He couldn't remember this happening, but it did sound like an interesting night. That smile dropped when Steve walked back in and sat down.

"If your gonna tell one of my stories, you should get it right. He was making fun of me for being short. That was the landlord; my place is done so I'll head back about noon or so."

"What about me?" Bucky mentally cringed at how childish he sounded.

"You can stay with me," was Steve's immediate answer.

* * *

"Well...here's home. Got your kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom," Steve introduced as he went into the bedroom and began preparing the futon.

While the captain was setting up Bucky's bed, he wandered through the apartment and looked around like a kid at Christmas...only less happy. He walked into the kitchen and opened and closing the cabinets to familiarize himself with its contents. Turning around, he found a folder stamped **CONFIDENTIAL** lying on the countertop. Bucky immediately gravitated towards it and brought himself to open it. His heart skipped a beat when he saw its contents.

It was him. Photos from the 40s of James Buchanan Barnes. A file page with his name, birthday, medical information, everything. He found a file paper stamped with S.H.I.E.L.D's emblem in the back. All the boxes and spaces were empty except for one up top that was labeled **CODENAME: Winter Soldier**. There were photos of him in his cryofreeze chamber, photos of him laying on a table with some scientist working on his metal arm.

"Hey, Buck," Steve called from the bedroom, "do you have any preference for lunch, or can I just order a pizza?"

Bucky hastily closed the file and backed into the living room. He stumbled over the table and landed on the sofa just as Steve came in.

"Bucky? ...Bucky."

"File," he whispered under his breath, but soon corrected himself, "fine. Uh...I'm fine. Hey, I'm going to take a shower."

"Okay," Steve perked up a bit, "I'll show you how to use it. The nob is stubborn."

* * *

The futon in the bedroom was a cloud compared to everything Bucky was used to. Steve said that it was just some crappy one he picked up off the curb for ten dollars. For about twenty minutes all Steve heard was tossing and turning from seven feet away.

"Too soft?" Steve asked from his bed.

"I'm used to a body-shaped refrigerator."

"Must've been fun," he joked, but wished he never said anything.

"I'd always be sick when I got out. Sick, wet, cold, disoriented...I hated it. And no one was ever nice. All they did was hand me a trash can, a blanket, and let me puke my guts up in silence. The longest I was ever asleep was from 1954 to 1989..."

"I can't imagine that."

That was the last thing said before both of them fell asleep. Everything was fine until something caused Steve to wake up.

There was a sudden weight on him and there was something cold, hard, and sharp pushing into his neck. Steve found himself restrained by Bucky. He sat on top of the captain looking feral and savage while holding a knife poised in his metal hand against Steve's neck. Bucky's long hair framed his enraged expression.

"Bucky..." he began calmly, "it's me. It's -"

"Pochemu sushchestvuyet fayl na menya?! Pochemu u vas eto, i s chego ty vzyal yego?! Otvet'te mne chert voz'mi!*" Bucky yelled at him in Russian and pressed the knife harder against Steve's skin.

Steve didn't exactly speak Russian, so he could answer Bucky. All he could do was,try and calm him down while being yelled at in Russian.

"Think, Bucky. Your not in a lab, no ones going to hurt you, you can relax now."

"Zatknis! Zatknis', amerikanskiy ublyodok!**" he yelled again.

Bucky pushed the knife down slightly harder. Steve could feel a couple rivulets of blood beginning to trickle down his throat. Bucky's eyes caught the red drips and he slackened his grip on bothe the knife and on Steve's hands. Then he just stopped. He froze. Bucky dropped the knife on the bed and climbed back onto the floor, all the while moving his gaze between Steve's neck and his eyes.

"Not again," the brunette whispered to himself.

"Bucky? Are you alright?" the captain asked as he wiped blood from his neck.

"No, I'm not...I did it again. I'm sorry, I just...I'm sorry," he said as he shoved his feet into his boots and disappeared out the door.

Steve chased him down the hallway, but when he got to the top of the stairs, Bucky pushed him backwards into a wall and ran down the stairs.

"Bucky, wait!"

"Don't follow me."

Steve ran his hands through his hair and ran back into his apartment; slamming the door behind him. What was he going to do? He just found Bucky and now he lost him again. There had to be something he could do. Natasha. She was usually tracking Bucky (unless your the latter half of S.H.E.I.L.D, then he's "Winter Soldier") for different reasons. Steve grabbed his phone and dialed her faster than he ever had dialed before. It rang three times before she answered.

"Rogers, I hope you have a good excuse. I'm on a date," she greeted. He heard Clint talking in the back ground.

"At one in the morning? Never mind, that's not important. Are you still following Bucky around?"

"If I'm on a date why would I be following your boyfriend? Did he do something?"

"He's not my boyfriend...but he was fine, then he snapped, went into some PTSD-fueled Russian assassin mode and just ran out," he sounded more like a worried mother than he would have liked to.

"I'll see what I can do. I have to go," Natasha offered before hanging up.

Steve sat down on the sofa and stared out the kitchen window. Then the folder caught his eye. It was the file on Bucky.

"Oh no."

* * *

*Why is there a file on me?! Why do you have it, and where did you get it?! Answer me damnit!

**Shut up! Shut up, you American bastard!


	4. Back Home

**hey guys! Special thanks to JuliaAurelia for all the sweet reviews. Well...its come to the last chapter. I know I know...sad but it was fun while it lasted right? Hope you all enjoyed and I'll be shelling more out soon. BEFORE YOU CONTINUE this chapter will not have any slash/sex/smut whatever in it. The scene at the end is meant to be taken as pure Stucky fluff/comfort. Once more...translations are at the bottom.**

* * *

It was seven in the evening and Steve had called everyone he knew. No one knew anything. He knew it was his fault for leaving the Winter Soldier file out on the counter. He was out of ideas at this point, and he was not going to go down to the police station for a missing persons. Being bored and anxious and a lot of other things, he decided that he had nothing better to do than make coffee. A knock at the door stopped him and he opened the door half expecting to find Natasha or Clint.

Two S.H.E.I.L.D. agents (that he didn't know) were holding Bucky in handcuffs between them. While the two agents looked normal, it was clear that Bucky put up a fight. The ex-assassin had bruises littering his face and favored his right leg a little.

"Captain Rogers, Agent Romanov sends her regards," the one on the left said as he removed the handcuffs, shoved Bucky at Steve, and closed the door.

Bucky more or less limped over to the couch and eased himself down. Steve threw him a couple of icepacks while the brunette unlaced his boots and kicked his feet up on the table.

"Bucky, I -"

"I do that sometimes. I'll lash out...my mind will run blank and all I see are people I don't know. I didn't mean to hurt you," he said in a quiet, apologetic voice as he eyed the band-aid on Steve's neck.

"It was my fault for leaving your file out on the counter."

"I was bound to see it sooner or later," Bucky corrected flatly.

He set an icepack on his hurting ankle, leaned his head back on the cushions, and set the second pack over his face. Bucky explained that the agents had backed him into an alley and punched him until he agreed to come with them. He admitted to feeling stupid when he turned his ankle being thrown into the van.

"Yeah well...I think you got the warm and fuzzy side of S.H.I.E.L.D. Are you hungry?"

"Not really," Bucky mumbled under the icepack, but his stomach growled loudly in protest, "okay, maybe a little."

"We have leftover pizza. I don't know what your used to...so just have whatever."

"I'll make some pizza," Bucky decided, standing up slowly.

Steve went with him to show him the microwave and put the icepacks back in the freezer. Bucky watched him and stared over his shoulder at the freezer. He felt the cold sneaking past Steve and coming for him. The hair on his skin stood on end and his metal arm adjusted and contracted minutely, as if welcoming an old friend. There were flashbacks that streaked across his mind:

_There was a train, then he was falling, he hit the snow hard. He couldn't feel his left arm...and the snow was red. Why was the snow so red? Snow shouldn't be red, and there was this black that slowly faded in. When he woke up there were people standing over him with clipboards and he was in a bed. Was his arm okay? He held his hands up. Since when was his left hand metallic? There was this machine that was closing over his face. What did that do? Suddenly there was nothing but pain, and this feeling of being sucked into a vacuum_.

"Bucky? What's wrong?" Steve asked, concerned, as he closed the freezer.

Bucky continued to stare at the freezer door, but slumped down to the floor and curled himself into a ball. He covered his face with his hands and broke down crying into them.

"Kholod...kholod pridet za mnoy! Ne pozvlyayte yemu vzyat' menya snova! Ya na khochu, chtoby vernut'sya...*" he mumbled in Russian between hiccups.

Steve sat down on the floor next to him, wrapped an arm around him, and tried to speak as soothingly as he could, "Bucky, I don't know Russian. But whatever's wrong, your alright. No ones going to hurt you."

"The cold...is coming for me. Don't let it take me again. I-I don't want to go back."

Steve scooped Bucky up in his arms. He had been tortured, frozen, and turned into an assassinating zombie against his will. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, that would take back the sixty-plus years of pain. Bucky pulled his head from his hands and looked up at Steve with puffy, red eyes and an almost broken look.

"Wh-What are you doing?"

"I'll bet ten bucks you don't remember, but when I was nine, I had a dog; a collie named-"

"Albert," Bucky sniffled, "you named it Albert, right?"

Steve smiled and set Bucky down in his own bed. The captain couldn't help but smile at the fact that he remembered and climbed in next to the brunette. Bucky lolled his head onto Steve's shoulder.

"Well one day it broke out of the kennel, ran into the street and got run over by a car. Well, when you heard you ran over and spent the whole day trying to make me feel better."

Bucky smiled. At least one of them remembers his past, and in a way he's glad it's Steve. They spent the next hour like that, Steve would tell story after story and Bucky would throw in anything he remembered. It was something the both of them clearly missed.

"I like this," Bucky finally said.

"Yeah. It's nice to have you back, Bucky."

* * *

*The cold...the cold is coming for me. Don't let it take me again. I don't want to go back...


End file.
